Two weeks later:
Jack walked slowly into the kitchen after a long day at the Pentagon, still dressed in his blues, but he didn't feel much like changing. At least not yet.
"How is she, Daniel?" He asked, as he passed Daniel, who sat at his laptop, typing something.
Daniel looked up. "Who? Sam?"
Jack didn't answer verbally, just gave him a shadow of the look he would have gotten if Jack had been himself.
"Right. Sam." He said, nodding. "Uh, well...she hasn't moved. I tried to bring her something to eat, but she didn't even acknowledge that I'd been there."
Jack just nodded slowly as he reached for a cup.
Daniel studied his haggard friend. He looked somewhat more rugged than usual with a noticeable bit of stubble growing on his cheeks and chin. He looked like he'd been to hell and back several times in the last few weeks.
Jack pressed his finger into the cup in an effort to determine whether or not it was clean before he reached for the coffee pot. He grimaced slightly when he realized that the liquid in it was the cold remains of what had been left from this morning. He poured the dark liquid down the drain before rinsing it out.
"How are you doing, Jack?"
"Fine." Jack murmured as he began the preparations for another pot of coffee.
"You're fine?" Daniel asked, skeptically. "You look awful."
"Remind me not to call you when I need a boost," Jack said, wryly, still not looking at the archaeologist.
"Must be tough. Losing the baby like that. Not being able to talk to Sam with the way she's been acting."
Jack hung his head as he leaned his body weight on his hands which were pressed against the counter top. He inhaled, and then returned to his normal stature. "I said I'm fine, Danny."
"Look, I know you too well to believe you," Daniel said with a raised eyebrow. "I know you've got some skeletons which have probably reared their ugly heads, and as much as I would like you to be able to take them to Sam, I don't think that's an option right now."
Jack was silent for a few more moments, waiting for the coffee to percolate excitedly in the coffee maker. It was only a few minutes before Jack had a fresh cup of coffee in his hands, and he took a sip without thinking once about how hot it was. He grimaced slightly as he looked down at the brown liquid. Then, he set it down on the counter and leaned his backside against it.
"She was terrified, Daniel," he whispered, lost in the terrible memory of the night Sam had miscarried. "I didn't know how bad it had gotten until she passed out from the loss of blood." He shuffled his feet for a moment, looking down at the dark leather shoes he wore. "Quite frankly, I was surprised she was still alive when I finally saw just how much blood she'd lost. And so, when I couldn't wake her up..." He hesitated for a moment, getting too choked up for his own comfort. "It was one thing to lose the baby. It would have been another to lose Sam too."
Daniel nodded, soberly.
"Now, to see her like this...now, I know how Sara must have felt after Charlie died. Seeing how hurt and confused and numb I was, but unable to do anything except coexist in two different spheres of existence..." Jack sighed. "Made me want to call her and apologize, but I knew it could never do anything. After all these years, after all this time...it would have been hollow. Too hollow."
Daniel bit the inside of his cheek as Jack reached for his coffee mug again, gently touching the liquid with his finger to determine its temperature before he sipped at it again.
-
Jack walked into the bedroom after feeling the slight buzz of the caffeine hit his system. Sam was in the same position she'd been in when he'd first left. Lying in bed with a vacant expression on her face.
Like she'd been after Jolinar's death.
Only that had lasted a total of three days. This...this was worse.
He walked over and knelt in front of her, gently stroking her arm with his hand. "Hey," he murmured, softly.
She managed a ghost of a smile. "Hi."
"You feeling okay?"
She shrugged, wordlessly.
"Daniel said that Grace has been wanting to see you. Why don't you let her in, hm? Might make you feel a little better..."
She closed her eyes and rolled over, non-verbally signaling to him that she wasn't interested in what he had to say.
Jack sighed softly as he stood. Almost instantly, he sat on the bed beside her, putting his hand on her hip. "Sam, I know it hurts...but this...this isn't going to help."
She didn't answer, and he bit his lip somewhat nervously. "Your...reassignment was approved. You have a couple more weeks of bereavement and medical leave, but after that...they want you to report as liaison between the Pentagon and Area 51. It's a...a new position that, uh, will mean a few business trips to Nevada, but overall, you'll be reading those science reports you love so much..."
She turned a watery look to him. "And why...would I want to go back?" She asked after a moment.
"Because you love your job." He said, soberly. "You may not remember that now, but it's true."
"My job..." She said with as much sarcasm as she could muster in her listlessness. "Loving my job did nothing for me, but take away everything I love."
"Hey," Jack chided, gently. "That's not true. I'm still here. Grace is here. Daniel, Teal'c and Vala are out there, and Cam promises to visit when he can, but since he's got your old job, he's not going to be able to just pop in whenever he feels like it."
"And I waited how long to admit my feelings for you because of my job?" She asked, tearfully.
"That was a mutual decision." He countered.
"Based on me and my job." She reminded him. "And...and Daniel's died. Twice. At least twice...and the last time? What? Five years ago? I killed h-"
"No, Sam." He interrupted. "That wasn't you. It was the Replicator."
Sam closed her eyes in agony. "Directly or indirectly, I...and only I...made her what she was." She whispered. "She learned betrayal from Fifth...who learned it from me."
"We killed her." He reminded her, seriously.
She swallowed before she looked away.
"Don't do this, Sam." He pleaded. "Don't shut me out."
She looked back at him for a moment before she rolled over and pulled the covers more tightly around herself.
He sighed softly. "I know how much this hurts, Sam." He said, swallowing.
"I know what you're going through, and things just kept slipping away the more I let my agony overwhelm me." He laid down on the bed beside her.
He touched a hand to her arm as he leveled himself into a position so that he could whisper into her ear. "It wasn't your fault." He whispered, gently dragging his fingers up and down her arm. "It wasn't the Air Force. It wasn't your job. It wasn't anything." He closed his eyes for a moment. "It happened." He paused again. "It happened, and we have to move on."
His wife was quiet, but he could see the trails of the tears on her cheek. He reached out a tender hand as he tried to wipe them from her face. "Come on, Sam. Talk to me."
The next few moments were long, unbelievably long, before she rolled over so that she faced him. She touched a timid finger to his face, gently tracing the lines which had appeared over the last two weeks. She looked at his lips for a moment as her finger slipped from his face before she looked back up into his eyes. She swallowed, silently. "I wish..." She whispered, softly.
"You wish what?" He asked, giving her just enough physical space so that she wouldn't be afraid, but still keeping his hand on her arm to reassure her that he was as tangible as he seemed.
"I wish I could take it all back." She whispered, unable to look him in the eyes. "Do it all over again."
"You mean, you wouldn't marry me?" He asked, softly. He wasn't accusing her of anything; he was just curious, and she could see it in his eyes.
"No, I would marry you..." She admitted, looking down with languid eyes.
"And you wouldn't adopt Grace?" He asked with the same sort of understanding.
He saw the closest thing to a smile she'd had on her face since she'd gone to the hospital flutter onto her lips. "Of course I'd adopt Grace."
His breath hitched as he prepared to ask his last question. "You wouldn't save the world?"
She hesitated, swallowing. "If they needed my help..." She murmured, unable to lie to him in the intimacy of their bedroom as she lay so close to him.
"You would save the world," he finished with a small and tender smile.
She could see the sadness in his eyes, and she inhaled slowly as she looked away into the eternity of her mind. "Things..." she whispered in her state of melancholy. "Things happened the only way they could have." She looked back up at him. "Didn't they?"
He shook his head. "There are a lot of things that could have changed. A million things that could have been different." He sighed softly. "If that wasn't the case, then there wouldn't be such things as alternate realities."
She was silent. There were no tears anymore. Just the stark reality that they were going to have to face.
He studied her face with the love and compassion of a husband and the empathy of someone who'd lost what could and should have been a magnificent future. "But I wouldn't change it," he managed after a long moment.
Knowing his history of wanting to change things for the better, she looked up at him in surprise.
"I wouldn't even change the fact that Charlie died. As strange as it may seem."
She watched him for a long moment, trying to find the words that she wanted to say. Trying to determine whether or not she wanted to hear what he had to say.
"Why?" She finally managed.
"Because as calloused as it sounds, if I hadn't lost Charlie, then I wouldn't have gone to the SGC and taken the Abydos mission." He inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Or if I had, when I finally met you..." He swallowed, seriously. "I would have still been happily married."
She thought about what the future might have looked like if Jack O'Neill had still been married to Sara when she'd met him.
"I'd probably have married Pete when I met him," she whispered. "I wouldn't have needed your...acceptance or...approval...of my engagement."
"And then, where would we be?" He asked, tracing the curves of her face with a weathered hand.
She was silent for a moment before turning mournful eyes to him. "How can you do it? How can you just keep moving on?"
"The same way that you have all of these years," he said, gently. "I know there's something bigger out there. Maybe God. Maybe something else. But because there's this...force...out there, everything happens for a reason. Even the bad things have some sort of...opportunity...in them."
She closed her eyes as she felt the pain of her loss wash over her again. "And...the opportunity here?" She asked, almost too quietly for him to hear.
He gently forced her to look at him. "To love each other more."
She felt a lump grow in her throat, and he looked over at her as he had a thousand times before. "C'mere," he whispered, wrapping his strong arms around her as he pulled her toward him.
She clung to him as she sobbed openly, allowing herself to feel the pain and the grief of the last few weeks as fully as could handle so that her broken heart could begin to mend.
There was a soft knock on the door several minutes later, after Sam's crying had subsided, and they turned their attentions to it as Grace opened the door cautiously. "Mommy?" She whispered, timidly.
Jack looked at Sam, who closed her eyes and wiped her tears from her face before slowly sitting up. "Yes, angel?"
"Are you feeling better today? Uncle Daniel said you might be...at least a little bit."
Sam swallowed, thickly. "I'm...feeling a little better..." She managed a thin smile as she looked back at Grace. "But I could use a hug from my little angel."
"I can give you a hug." She said with a small smile.
"What are you still doing over there, then?" Sam asked, somehow mustering enough energy to deal with the young girl's enthusiasm.
Grace smiled softly as she walked over. Jack helped her onto the bed, and she gently wrapped her arms around her mother in a warm embrace. "I'm sorry you got sick," she whispered. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you about it."
Sam pulled away from Grace for a moment as she swallowed. "Never apologize for that," she said soberly.
She felt tears well up in her eyes, and she paused briefly, looking away for a moment as she retained her composure. She turned back to her daughter. "You can't control these dreams, and I don't ever want you to. Sometimes they're perfectly right, and sometimes they're only partially right, but I don't want you to feel like you have to always tell us what is going to happen. We'll know if we need to know, but..."
She felt her emotions slipping again. "Sometimes, we don't...we don't need to know..."
Grace nodded slowly, and Sam reached for her again, hugging her tightly as she let her tears slip down her cheeks.
Jack felt tears moisten his own eyes as he watched the exchange. It was a small step toward recovery, he recognized, but it was a step nonetheless, and he was willing to take everything he could get at this point.